tv tuner remote help

i have a tv card , but i cant get the remote to work. i cant figure out where the problem lies. I have taken the remote apart and put a volt meter across the transmitter diode?? and when i press buttons on it , i get a reading. so i figure thats working. i dont know how to test if the reciever is working. its a long peice of wire with a headphone jack at one end and a round thingy at the other for reciveing. I suspect its a software problem , or more likly i have somehow broken the ir receiver circuit on my tv card (accidently plugging in sound). The card is a dynalink tveiw cph051 , also know as a askey something.
(http://www.dynalink.com.au/products/cph061.htm)

anyway , i was wondering if it was possible to use lirc , and cut the end off the reciever part and do some soldering magic and plug it into the serial port. lirc will apparently work with my tv card as it stands , but i want to use it in windows and as far as i can gather winLirc wont work.